In August 2004, University of Michigan Management Professor C.K. Prahalad published a book, "The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid", dedicated to a single powerful idea: the 4 billion people living on less than $2 per day represent the biggest latent market for multinational corporations.

Turning the entire poverty reduction paradigm on its head, Professor Prahalad showed that those we frequently see as an undifferentiated mass of despair are not only active and value-conscious consumers, but also often extremely savvy business people forming a powerful grid through which multinational corporations can access a market of nearly $13 trillion while creating economic opportunities for enterprising people struggling to make a living.